Bring me back home
by Sapphire's Ink
Summary: Lance glanced pleadingly up at Blue, who allowed her pilot passage into her head. Lance crept inside Blue and lay down on her tongue; fleshy, metallic, and weird, but not wet. Blue opened a wormhole. The last thing Lance heard before the soothing waves from the ocean was Allura yelling at them to come back, but he ignored it over the fact that he was no longer in pain. IDONOTOWNVLD
1. Chapter 1

Every day is odd when you're a part-fish. There is no exception.

For example, you need to keep it a secret. That is rather hard when you have to consciously avoid touching anything liquid you see, or else the secret you've been working your whole life to protect is gone forever.

The first time Lance met Hunk, he was looking after his little sister, playing in a water park, while Hunk was looking after a little kid he was babysitting who also enjoyed playing at waterparks. Acacia, by this point, knew better than to hug Lance just as they stopped playing at a waterpark, but the little child Hunk had been babysitting, Lucille, did not. As most hyper children do when they see someone their guardian is very clearly getting along with, Lucy ran up to Lance and hugged the teen. So as to not cut off Acacia's fun, Lance dried off his legs with the white fluffy towel he'd brought for the little girl before the ten-second 'timer' ran out. Thankfully, he succeeded, and evaporated whatever he couldn't dry with the towel.

The first time he met Pidge and Keith, someone had started a food fight. A bowl of chili was thrown his way (odd because that day's lunch was sloppy joes), but he nonchalantly held a tray to block the red soup-like sludge, and Lance started paying more attention to the feud, especially when they threw drinks. People had exceptionally bad aim towards him after the chili fiasco. In return for the near transformation, he went to the people who started the food fight, Keith and Pidge themselves, and switched their shampoo with eggs and their conditioner with peanut butter, and the same with their dorm mates and anyone else they could have borrowed shampoo and conditioner from.

The first time he met Pidge personally, he suggested going out to town and bonding to begin a healthy relationship as a team. Pidge had refused, and any other bonding efforts were also rebuffed, until finally Hunk dragged the pale brown-haired boy (who Lance already figured out was a girl but continued to call her by male pronouns to respect her privacy and discretion) out by his feet to eat dinner with them at the local civilian diner. There, their waitress accidentally spilled his cup of water, causing him to retreat to the bathroom to dry off. It took ten minutes to replicate the stains without causing another transformation, but it apparently took just about as long to cry off clothes, so the two didn't worry about his prolonged absence. Plus, his food got there by then, and they started eating.

The first time he met Keith personally, the brunet started ranting about blue lions, and dragged them all out to see his findings from tangible evidence concerning the Fraunhofer line Hunk came up with that lined up with the rock surface. When he brushed his hand against the wall, the symbols glowed a bright blue, and Lance was immediately on alert, especially when the floor cracked and gave out from under the five voyagers, bringing them into an underground cave, where sat Blue in the same position she had been for thousands of years.

Lance had gone down a sort of waterfall to get to Blue, and unlike the others, stayed on his feet the whole time, despite gravity wanting his body to fall down and give in to the pressure. Still, it was difficult staying on his feet when the ground gave out, so he made a complicated flip (it was definitely easier in the water) and landed with a small splash in the water, quickly leaving the area in preparation for Hunk's humongous splash.

His attention then turned towards Blue.

A large, mechanical blue lion surrounded by a glowing blue barrier patterned with hexagons. Lance took a step closer as the others got up, ignoring his feat of gymnastics. "Is this it?" Pidge's breathless voice caught in the air. "Is this the Voltron?"

"It must be." Shiro's shocked voice rang clearer then Pidge's, but he was still flabbergasted from Blue's appearance.

The five approached Blue. Lance moved from side to side to make sure of something, while discreetly keeping the water on his pants away from his skin. "I feel like she's staring at me." Lance's voice called out, moving drastically from side to side. "Does anyone else fel that?"

"No." Keith shook his head and the sentiment was repeated across the other three.

"Well, that's weird. The eyes are totally following me." Lance stopped moving from side to side, getting closer and closer to Blue with each step, and the unwanted pressure slipped through his bones, making him cold.

Keith's hands pressed against the barrier. Ripples went across the hexagons, leaving the shapes less clear than before. "How does it open?" the hothead wondered, sliding his hands across the energy shield.

Well, he was the one who the eyes were following. He was more of an expert on this than Keith, at least, no matter how much time he was spending in the desert researching Blue. "Maybe you just gotta knock." Lance spoke coolly, rapping his right hand twice against the barrier. The shield pulsed with energy, sending more violent ripples across the barrier than Keith's touches. As Lance pulled back, a tower of energy followed him. The barrier glowed a blinding blue as the robot sitting in the circle glowed a bright and vibrant blue again, for the first time on eons.

Lance stepped back in shock as a gust of stale wind fell from around the mechanical lion. The penetration of his mental barriers came as somewhat of a shock to him, and for a split second, he was reminded of the moon's first connections to him. It was warm and cold at the same time, and felt like a tidal wave of water. Such a strange sensation, and so eerily similar to the moon.

Blue's eyes lit up yellow, and she lowered her mouth to take up the five.

"Did anyone else feel that?" Lance's voice sounded weak even to his own ears.

"VOLTRON IS A ROBOT!" Hunk cried. "A HUGE, GIANT, AWESOME ROBOT WITH AN EVEN COOLER SWORD MADE OUT OF FIRE!"

"And this thing's only one part of it!" Pidge continued as Lance walked up to Blue to enter in. "I wonder where the other parts are?"

The rest of the conversation fell blank to Lance. Soft purring entered his ears, filtering any other sound in his mind. Lance closed his eyes, and he suddenly saw himself, looking out at the rock wall. The four others were staring at him, and Lance had his eyes closed.

Memories rifled through his mind.

Five lions flying in formation, the warmth of their bond. Stripes of colour filled the sky. Red, Green, Yellow, Blue, Purple, the ribbons of colour dragging behind them to form an odd mismatched rainbow. The five tips converged to form a giant robot, just like the other four previously spoke of.

The moon over him in the sky, connected to the moon pool. The moon making the moon pool into a hot tub, robbing him of normalcy forever.

Moving from Spain to Newfoundland to be closer to the moon. He knew how difficult it was to leave the heat behind, and it took a lot of adjustment for the weather, and a lot of planning, and getting VISAs for everyone in order to legally move to Canada. Changes in healthcare system, changes in educational system, changes in social groups, changes in jobs, and more and more and more.

Meeting Tsuyoshi. Even Tsuyoshi had trouble pronouncing his name, so everyone called him either Yoshi or Hunk. Hunk later became his permanent nickname.

Applying to Galaxy Garrison together, and getting in together - on scholarships, no less (well, Lance had applied in Spanish)! Starting from zero, and quickly working his way to the top of his class.

Graduating to Fighter. Zero again, but this time in the advanced class with Hunk.

His first day as a Fighter pilot, given no time to catch up, failing miserably. Iverson yelled at him for that.

Two days later, here we are.

Lance exhaled shakily. "Guys, does anyone else feel a connection to Azul?"

"Azul?" Tsuyoshi asked. "Blue?"

Lance nodded and gulped. "Blue. She's blue, so her name is Blue. Just like Yellow is yellow, Green is green, Red is red, and Black is black."

"Lance, what are you talking about?" came Pidge's condescending voice.

Three big steps brought Lance closer to Blue. Blue's maw opened, revealing a ramp to inside her head. The bond suddenly lost all of the frigidity, leaving only calm waters, ever flowing and changing. The world almost held a blue tinge, like he was seeing everything through tinted glasses. "It's not dangerous. Azul is a ship, one of the Voltron Lions. She'll take you all to yours."

Hesitantly, the four others followed him, beginning an adventure that would go down in history as one of its most odd and poorly documented stories of all time.

* * *

Lance, from that point forwards, knew he had to keep his father's words close to heart, because living in a house where people knew he was a fish was bad enough, especially when Acacia or Alazne brought friends over for a sleepover, not to mention the time spent away from home (in hotels, in the Garrison bunkers, and especially the very public shower area at the Garrison (that was a pain to keep hidden. He eventually just went during lunchtime when everyone was actually eating, or skipped showers until he was so stinky that everyone stayed at least ten feet away from him)).

Now, it was a permanent sleepover. There was only one upside: they all had separate shower areas.

Sometimes, to help firm the bond, Lance slept in Blue. He dreams of swimming in the warm depths of the bond alongside Blue, both laughing and teasing one another. Lance would introduce her to the dolphins and the whales, and she would take him to the Antarctic and teach him about penguins and polar bears. Lance would wake up feeling well-rested, and the bond was much more solid.

Still, bonding with the rest of the team was a different matter. Lots of their training exercises included the invasion of the mind, and he purposefully kept his mind away from unwanted territory. He locked away all his memories of the moon, his tail, or his powers into a chest, guarded with so many mental barriers no one could get past.

"Lance, this isn't going to work if you don't take the time to reveal everything." Coran scolded.

So many flashes went by in such a small amount of time that it made everyone else dizzy. Lance stuffed those thoughts away in a box again when Hunk puked, feeling motion sick. "Sorry." Lance apologized. "I-I got a lot on my mind. I'd rather not be burden."

Not untrue. He didn't want to burden the team, nor Voltron, nor make Blue look for a new pilot. Still, the preoccupation was mostly towards Blue. Despite all the time (or lack thereof) spent together, Lance still didn't feel at all safe around anyone in this room or anywhere beyond the Castleship. Only with his family, and the moon. To be sure those rogue thoughts never escaped again, he locked up the box inside three other boxes, then sealed the last one with chains and locks. Anything else was fair game.

Looking out at the ocean, the feel of the dry sand between his toes, running around underneath the blazing sun with his siblings, every single one of them barefooted. Play at the park, reading his favorite novel, taking tests, sharing thoughts in pure Spanish, joy at learning English. He poked around in everyone else's heads, too. He already had a deep bond with Hunk, so he steered clear of Yellow's pilot and delved into Keith's, who he knew he needed to build a non-antagonistic relationship the most.

Keith's thoughts were mostly happy. He'd probably locked away his negative thoughts, too. A lot of his memories involved he and Shiro as children, like a camping trip that Keith had really enjoyed, playing and running along the shore of a beach, laughing and being kids. He remembered the orphanage, starving, freez-

Keith tossed his headband on the floor, severing the connection between him and Lance. Keith's furious eyes locked on Lance's dead ones. Lance lifted his hands to his head and slowly tore away the headband when he felt Hunk start to look around for the keys.

"Lance, stop rooting around in uncomfortable memories." Keith looked paler then before, like those memories haunted him.

"Sure thing." Lance's voice was squeaky. He knew the feeling of such an unwanted penetration. He was glad the headband wasn't on right then, because not even Hunk knew about SDOGFCTS, also known as DOG FACTS.

Lance heard a door opening and tensed, seeing the lab again. Needles poking at his eyes, water over his skin, dry drowning, and _oh, god, make it stop_! Gills on his chest, hand in his internal organs, screaming, pain _bloodbloodbloodbloodbloodblOODBLOODBLOODBLOODBLOOD!_

The doctor with the gas mask covering his face, drill at his skull, _buzzing, buzzing, what was that buzzing?_ at his ear, shrills and repetitive beeping, _why was there beeping, why was thERE BEEPING?!_ thumping, drumming heart, stress, a needle in his neck _oh god, why was there a needle in his neck what had he done wrong now?_ Darkness, **stresssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss** , so much that his hair went grey. Fell out, grew back blue and white and unmanageable... Fins for ears, sensitive and picking up any sound anywhere within two miles _headacheheadacheheadacheadacHEHEADACHE, Oh GOD, MAKE THE NOISE STOP!_

All he could see was the damned scene, playing over and over again. Nothing prevented anything, this was a dream, he was still with DOG FACTS, it was horrible and painful, MAKE IT STOP!

Lance started to hyperventilate. Was this all really an illusion? He could feel the walls start to close in. Darkness, limited oxygen, trappedtrappedtrappedtrAPPEDTRAPPEDTRAPPED!

Purple sparks danced in front of his eyes and darkness filled his vision. What seemed like a few minutes passed, and his eyes snapped open again. He threw off the covers, sweat sleeking his skin.

He crawled to the bathroom and lifted himself to his feet by the edge of the sink, and the sight of himself made his breath catch in his throat. White hair, tinged blue at the tips. Scales covering his arms. Why? He wasn't covered in liquid... Sweat wasn't applicable, right? Or did any liquid, including bodily fluid apply now?

* * *

Kari L'Sara walked down the long halls of Central Command, a home reserved for high-ranking officials. The soft purple glow of the halls was ethereal. The programmed guards occasionally came across the Master Alchemist. Kari took inane pleasure in knowing she was superior to the machines. Only twice as the patrolled the halls did she come across an escaped prisoner, and killed them on the spot. Three times, she came across other living beings: Galra. Once, it was a pair of children playing tag, and Kari advised them not to run in the halls. They obeyed with small nods, and continued playing tag, this time walking to the designated gym of their living section. The second, it was the parents of those same children who were running after the boys to bring them home for dinner. She reminded them of the rules, too.

The third time, she came across a group of adults playing 'poker', whatever that was, for Nunvill (Haggar had poached the recipe from the Alteans). Hikari passed the room with a sneer on her face.

The shipwide comm came on. "Kari S'Lara, report to the throne room."

Hikari stepped into the wall, transporting to the throne room where Zarkon waited for her. Kari bowed to the overlord. "What may I do for you, my lord?"

"I have a job for you. Prepare the Hunters. We will create a device capable of tracking Energy Alchemists." Zarkon ordered.

"Yes, Lord Zarkon." Kari answered dutifully.

 **I'll give you cookies if you leave a comment.**

 **-Sapphy Ink**


	2. Chapter 2

Lance was stressed.

He knew he was stressed, too.

He needed to find somewhere to swim.

The mocha skin covering his face seemed a lot paler in the light of the bathroom. He felt sick.

When bile rose in his throat, he swallowed it back down (that bad taste isn't in my mouth, no it isn't). He went in his closet and dragged out two gloves to hide the scales in his arms. That took care of one problem. The other... His stark-white hair. That would be difficult to hide. How could he hide it? It was seven people living in close quarters (excluding the mice, which made the eleven life-forms) in a castle on the surface of a planet no one had any interest exploring in favor of training. He wouldn't be able to escape.

He wouldn't be allowed to continue. He would be sent back to the place where the do-

Lance took a deep breath. He needed to stop. DOG FACTS can't get to him so far away.

He glanced at the clock to calm himself and relaxed at the early time. It was only about an hour before training. His thoughts were dragged straight back to Earth without the distraction of needing to learn the time.

He couldn't swallow away the vomit in his throat now, and raced to the bathroom to expel the contents of his stomach. His family. Mama was pregnant, she would be so worried about him by now, and that wasn't good for the baby... Acacia was without his letters, probably crying over his grave. He knew Alazne like the back of his hand, too. She wouldn't have the guts to admit that he was dead, even if she saw his corpse, and going to the graveyard would make it all too real.

... He needed to find some way to cover up this stupid magic hair, then go for a swim. He couldn't stay this stressed, or he'd mess up training for himself and everyone else.

The hood on his jacket would work for a while, and his helmet would work in training, he supposed. It was as good as he could think of so stressed and clearly in need of a swim.

He hit the comm. "Allura?"

"... Yes, Lance?" came the tired voice.

"Do you have anywhere I could swim?"

"On the twenty-seventh floor." Allura answered with a yawn.

Lance let the Altean monarch get back to her sleep, and set off to the elevators for the pool.

When he saw the water, he immediately relaxed and ran towards the rippling pool, quickly jumping in, prompting the transformation. He smiled at the long, powerful tail replacing his legs. Oddly enough, it was... more comfortable, somehow, being in his merman form. He had spent most of his time growing up thinking about swimming rather than concentrating on school (it didn't matter, because he always got good on the tests, even when he skipped grades).

He smiled at the soft ripples under his skin. He shivered as his body adjusted to the cold (it still felt like someone pissed on his grave, though).

 **My pilot. Do not be alarmed.** Blue spoke in soft, soothing tones. It was clear she was the guardian spirit of water, she acted so familiarly to the ocean back at home.

It was also evident to him why they bonded so quickly. You chose me because I'm a merman, didn't you?

 **No. I am not that bigoted. I chose you because you are loyal and truly kind. Many people on your home planet lack those qualities. They are selfish and greedy and are ready to flee at the first sign of danger. I've been keeping track of you, ever since you fell to the Moon Pool's charm, yes, but I wanted to see where destiny led you.** Blue placated her pilot. **There are very few on your planet compatible with becoming my vessel and pilot both, much the same concerning the other Voltron lions. In fact, it's ironic every single one of you were at the same place at the same time, because Shiro was the only one compatible with Black on your planet.**

Allura was partially right, then. Lance realized. About us being the only ones in the universe fit for this role. But it's not our personalities you look for, it's the Quintessence types?

 **Not exactly. The personalities come into play, but if the Quintessence type is changed or corrupted, you're not either not compatible with the lion you used to pilot or any of the lions at all. Allura was right, in a sense, though. All of the roles pertaining to Voltron are very specific, and don't often differ. A main component connects us all to Voltron, but the gears left over can form something very interesting. For example, Hunk is compatible with both Yellow and Green, you are compatible with all of us, Keith is compatible with Red, Black, and Green, and Pidge is compatible with Green, Red, and myself.**

What about Shiro?

 **Shiro is complicated. He is compatible with Black and Yellow, which is a rare personality combination. Most can be a leader through 'tough love', in fact that's the same way Allura teaches you to bond with us and form Voltron, but Shiro can be a strong support system while leading you at the same time. He inspires confidence, but not an unreachable goal, and thus supports the team.**

... Blue?

 **Yes, my pilot?**

I interrupted Allura when she was explaining what you look for in your pilots, concerning personality that is. I don't know what to do to help the team.

 **You're a Natural.**

Natural?

 **It's what we call people who can immediately bond and pilot with their lions and their team. It's because you have such an easygoing way about you. You don't let adversity pull you down, and you always give your all. You're likable. However I chose my pilots is inconsequential. You are the one chosen.**

Lance sighed. He knew he would miss the morning drills if he stayed here any longer. He climbed out of the water. His clothes faded back, and he rolled down his gloves, hoping the scales faded away. No, they were still there.

He looked back against the reflection of the water, at his hair. The silver and blue strands on a head of mocha brown stared back at him. Lance glared at his reflection and turned around. He took three deep breaths to calm himself, and walked away from the room. He didn't need his emotions going haywire right now. He shoved all his feeling deep in a box in the back of his mind, something he'd trained himself to do from a very young age. Everything about him was a mask. People saw what they saw, and never questioned anything because it all looked so genuine.

Only one person ever managed to see past his facade. Only, he was back on Earth, and Lance would never see him again.

Good riddance.

On his way to the training deck, he made a short detour to his room for his armor and his Bayard. Allura was screech at him if he showed up without it, after all.

He was right. The helmet did hide his hair very nicely.

No one commented on his being half an hour late. Compared to Pidge, he was early.

If anyone thought Allura had bags under her eyes from stress or everyone worked harder today because Arus was attacked yesterday, no one put voice to those thoughts.

(Pidge even came two hours early to training - by her standards, of course. She was still an hour late.)


	3. Chapter 3

**IMPORTANT, PLEASE READ ME (for anyone before chapter four is out, that is): I'm going on a road trip on July the 14th. It'll last for around a month, there's no wifi in the trailer, there are only two laptops, and five people who want to use them. My tablet is uncooperative from how many times I've slammed a door in it and dripped water on it (it was slwo in the first place too), so that's out, and my phone is horrible at taking initiative with Autocorrect so I don't want to risk that when you can have much better quality on this computer.**  
 **Updates are going to be slow, if existing at all. I'll be taking all my notes with me on the trip, and I can only pray I'll get one or two chapters out while on this trip that I don't want to take.**

 **Now, you came here for a chapter. Ask, and ye shall recieve.**

Dark...

Pain...

Darkness and pain.

Sleep? No. DOG FACTS? No, a million light-years away. Explosion from giant crystal? More probable than DOG FACTS.

He wanted sleep. He wanted to not be in pain, actually, but we don't always get what we wish for.

Lance took in a breath and calmly exhaled it. Okay, the first thing you need to do is categorize your injuries.

Burns on the majority of your back side. Bruises in the front. Shockwave propelled you forwards, probably knocking out a few of your ribs. One of them is puncturing your kidney (internal bleeding? Likely).

Broken arm (seven places judging on the burning), sprained ankle. Surgery is necessary.

Headache? Maybe a concussion. He needed to stay awake, then.

... The sharp pains in his stomach wasn't helping at keeping away the lingering darkness, though. He felt like he needed to puke, and each step from the person carrying him (who was it anyways?) jarred his ribs. He was seriously worried one of the bone shards would puncture another of his internal organs.

"I'll always love you, you make me happy, if only you would say the same, but if you leave me to love another, you'll regret it all one day... What was the next verse?" Lance started singing to himself to keep himself awake. It worked, until he heard a door open. His breath caught. Maybe he was wrong. Was this DOG FACTS? His head pounded harder and harder...

Sweet nothingness took him over. He felt himself lying down on a makeshift cot, but nothing else came to him.

There were a few moments of lucidity. Sendak talking with his first lieutenant. Shiro pleading with Pidge (his screams of pain really made his eyes snap open before the pain of his ribs lulled him back to darkness).

Keith and Pidge (hadn't Keith been gone? Where had he gone? What about Tsuyoshi? Where's Coran?) burst into the control room swords blazing, but Sendak needed to be caught off-guard.

Tears sprung at his eyes as he sat up, activated his Bayard, and shot, but it was worth it when he saw Sendak's face before black pulled him in again.

He was fully aware he should be dead. By this point, his ribs had been jostled too much to not have punctured other organs, but Blue was keeping him alive by pouring Quintessence into his body.

He slept until Keith woke him up by helping him to sit up again, knowing rest wasn't good when you were so badly injured. "Where's Hunk?" (He felt like puking, but that might make his injuries worse. He was having a hard time breathing as it was.)

"He and Coran went for the new Crystal." Keith told him, gently assessing his wounds as best he could without taking off his companion's armor. He didn't want to jar the wounds. "They should be back soon."

"What about Sendak?" Lance's voice sounded weak even to his own ears.

"Knocked out." Keith looked behind him. Lance craned his neck so he could see. Sendak, his arm disconnected from the weird electro-stump, was slumped against the force field.

Lance sighed with relief. "We did it. We are a good team." he insisted, turning to look at his friend.

Keith smiled back. No other words were necessary.

Keith was decked in Paladin armor, Lance realized. Was he? The Cuban looked down. Yes, he was.

... But not with his helmet. It lay over there, by the door. It must have been flung from his head when he protected Coran from the blast.

Keith must be aware of his silver hair.

"Keith?" Lance addressed his companion. "I'm seriously worried I'm going to die if I sleep right now. I need to be kept awake."

"Uh, okay." Keith stuttered. "Um, I'm gonna tell you a story, and you need to pay attention, because there's gonna be a test later."

Lance's eyelids drooped, but he hummed and strained his ears, trying his hardest to keep track of Keith's words. After all, he hated failing tests.

True to form, Keith told Lance long (over three hours long) story where Shiro and he got into an argument, Keith was adopted, and their parents somehow found out he was both part alien and a government spy because his cover was blown form trying to investigate intergalactic conquerors down the street. The story never ended, and Lance enjoyed the adjectives Keith used to describe the species he was disguised as and how much more perfect his original species (made out of blue goop that changed colors according to their moods the same way facial expressions changed on humans), and almost forgot he was listening to Keith. He was an interesting storyteller.

At this point, Keith was pulling things out of his ass. Lance knew it, and so did the Red Paladin. Still, the story continued until Hunk got back five hours later (which made eight hours of listening to Keith prattle about government conspiracies and alien civilizations and the occasional punch in the stomach to keep Lance awake). Then, he was taken to the pods.

Waking out of his blissful (a bit cold for his liking, but still calm and peaceful) healing sleep was better than listening to Keith's ramblings through a massive headache. His organs were better, his headache was gone, his ribs were reset and healed, and he didn't feel like he needed to push against three boulders in his chest just to inhale. Sleep-chamber knees weren't fun, though, and being caught by Allura seemed like a strange role reversal to him.

"Thanks, Princess." He inhaled deeply through his nose. "Did anyone cook anything? I'm starved!"

Hunk chuckled and picked him up (Lance laughed at the familiar act on the part of his best friend), carrying his best friend to the dining room.

"Goo feast!" Hunk cheered, gesturing to the table, holding a banquet of products made of the green goop. Lance smiled at the green cake (it looked like Keith's original species when they were love-struck, but it tasted wonderful).

As Lance and the others ate and recounted what happened while he was unconscious or semi-conscious, the majority of his attention was focused on his food. He needed to train more. He was so useless that entire day, forcing Keith to stay with him and talk. He probably had better things to do.

Protecting Coran from an explosion may have been chivalrous, but raising a gun and shooting was hardly anything spectacular.

Instead of voicing this, however, he turned to Keith. "Wow, sounds like the mice did more than you."

"I chopped off Sendak's arm." Keith defended himself.

"Yeah, apparently after I emerged from a coma and shot him, which gave you the upper hand in the first place." Lance deadpanned.

"We had a bonding moment. For Pete's sake, I spent eight hours telling you a story about how I'm an alien and all about how people were completely insane!" the violet-eyed pilot growled, waving his arms in the air.

"... Right. So, when's the test? There was some contradictory information, but I think I'm down with all the important bits." Lance suddenly remembered.

"There's no test. It was a trick Shiro taught me to stay awake when we were getting to the hospital." Keith recounted.

"I remember." Shiro chuckled. "A concussion so bad the doctors didn't want to risk giving you a stimulant, so I had to stay with you and tell you a story about how I was an alien."

"Hey, you copied him!" Lance turned to Keith, offended he wasn't as creative as he first thought.

"No, a lot of the new stuff is mine, I just built that story off the premise I was an alien." Keith answered.

Lance pouted, taking another bite of the cake.

The entirety of the next week was spent training as the Castleship slowly made their way to the Balmera where they picked up the crystal.

"Hunk just wants to rescue his girlfriend." Lance teased, wagging his eyebrows.

"Shay is not my girlfriend, she's just a rock-lady-that-I-met-and-Iadmireverymuch." Hunk defended, his speech getting faster and faster as it progressed.

"You're rambling." Shiro chuckled.

"Yup!" Pidge chirped. "That means you're lying!"

Allura smiled as she watched their conversation. Alfor, Honerva, and Zarkon used to argue among themselves like that. She'd missed those connections since waking up from the pod.

... She left like she was home. Because she needed to readjust and move on. Holding on to memories wasn't healthy. Zarkon was evil, Honerva was corrupted, Alfor is dead. Blaytz died defending the Castleship, Grygan fell in battle against Zarkon defending Alfor until he had time to seal away Black and send the others out beyond the stars. Trigel was no doubt dead, but Allura never knew her fate. She felt like she didn't want to know how she died, nor did she want to put Coran though the pain or reliving his best friend's death.

These new ones. They acted just like the original ones. The mannerisms a bit different, sure, but the differences were negligible.

Her point was really driven home when Lance poked Keith in the forehead, claiming it was a rite of passage in his family to be accepted in (which Hunk confirmed, but no one really listened to him). Blaytz used to do that to Coran all the time, and it was really annoying to Coran, but it was a really sweet gesture of affection on the part of Blaytz.

Keith yelled at Lance. Lance chuckled and told jokes. Coran pressed a gloved hand to his own forehead and a tear traced his cheek. Despite how much annoyance could be derived from those pokes, Coran missed them. He missed Blaytz. Annoyance he may be, but he was family. The wounds were still fresh.

... He needed to keep a clear head. He wasn't a rookie or a baby. He knew when to cry. When to cry was behind closed doors, and absolutely never on enemy territory. Everywhere was enemy territory. He wouldn't let himself shed a tear for his brother. His race, his family, his friends.

Allura was a small comfort, but it was nice to know he wasn't the last of his kind.

Imperceptibly, he lowered his hand from his forehead, wiping away the tear, turning back to his station so he didn't have to watch Lance acting so much like Blaytz. No more fell.

?

Lance trained principally in the pool room. His hair was steadily more white and his eyes steadily more blue. When he found out his powers came from small amounts of melanin in his hair, he started dyeing it brown. The dye was often washed away when he went swimming, replaced by the natural silver, but he never stopped. There was no hiding his eyes though, and he defended himself though the explanation that everything went crazy with his body during puberty (which is a great excuse as a teenager, but what do you do when people ask you why you're going through puberty at the age of eight?).

(Thankfully, the Paladins respected his privacy regarding the sudden shirt in his hair colour. Shiro only joked he looked like Hatake Kakashi from _Naruto_ , and Lance refrained from commenting he had powers similar to the character.)

Fighting the Galra was, admittedly, rare. Robeasts? Yes, all the time. Galra? Not really a major thing unless they actually ran into a ship, which wasn't very often, shockingly.

That's why Lance focused on training his powers rather than his body. Sure, he still trained with his Bayard and running long distances without falling over from exhaustion seemed like a good thing even though he already had that down to a tee (eighteen on the _Altean_ version of the beep-test, thank you very much), but Robeasts were magic, and sooner or later, they would need a magic-user's talents.

He knew he would sacrifice his secret if need be, because whatever the cost, he wouldn't let anything happen to these new friends of his.

A thin stream of water rose from the pool's surface. He expanded the water, and focused on making all of the water rise out of the pool frame. He smirked at the success, and dropped it all back in the pool. He needed to work on physical stamina anyways, not magical. He'd been working on magical stamina for ten years, after all, which was why his hair was so silver.

* * *

Some dreams die on the vine. Some never have a chance.

A woman ran though the forest on her home world, playing tag with her brother. They paused when a rumbling filled the air, and a loud clap of thunder told her she was letting her emotions get out of control again.

They both knew the implications. They knew the cost.

The needed to get home to Mother.

A woman near a house was fighting Galran soldiers and Hunters with a staff, which conducted electricity.

A particularly strong bolt shook the ground. Thunder screeched through the air, the two children clapped their hands over their sensitive ears.

The soldiers were struck down. The woman fell. The children cried.

The faltering shield fell once and for all. Children were sent to work in labor camps, while the adults harvested the resources here. Anyone who resisted was immediately killed.

?

"Commander Reuni, Planet Erazeel has fallen." one of the soldiers announced to him.

"Good. Begin the Geode-weapon project of Balmeran crystals, Scaultrite, corrupted Balmera crystals, and Niriyan gems." Reuni sighed. It had been three years ago when they started to fight for Erazeel. Zarkon would be pleased the planet was finally conquered.

After all, if it was under control of a powerful Lightning logician, it had to be safeguarding something important.

?

Barriers around planets everywhere fell to ashes, and they were now available for Galra conquest. Eclecta had tried to save as many planets as she could, keeping them safe from conquest for generations. Many of them were quickly conquered, surrendering after Eclecta's barriers fell. Others tried to fight, but did not succeed, and were conquered within a week (pretty good since the average for conquering planets is six months without a logician's interference, six years with a logician's interference).

One thing was for certain. So many planets conquered because of her, Reuni would be promoted.

* * *

The Hunters worked under Kari to construct the tracking device. The Druids also took part in their project to work out the concept of the machine before it was programmed.

"It could be similar to the way Emperor Zarkon tries to find the Black Lion." one suggested.

"No, that would imply a spiritual connection deep enough to track. Our machine isn't sentient." another refuted. "It could be similar to the way Weblums track dead planets to turn into Scaultrite."

"No, that's a bio-message encoded in RNA strands as a desire to look for food. Besides, Weblums generally stay in the same area."

"What about echolocation?"

"Too much stellar interference. Alchemists have as much power as a star. Any star could project the same energy. We'd need precise oscillation measurements, and those records were lost when the Castle of Lions was sealed." another shook his head.

"What about a Teladuv system?" the smallest suggested.

"There are no Alchemists here who can handle that kind of power."

"Adapt the Teladuv systems to fit Commander Kari's power, or Lady Haggar's?"

"Are you insane? It would take _deca-phoebes_ to find out those kinds of adaptations! Don't you think we would already be using Teladuv systems if we knew how to adapt them to atypical Quintessence systems?!"

"... No, you've got a point."

The builders continued (loudly) arguing over how to build the device. Kari sat on the sidelines, sipping on Nunvill, because she deserved a break after two years working nonstop. Haggar lay beside Kari in a lawn chair, reading a book while waiting for them to figure out how to build it. Then, they would boss their underlings around.

* * *

Lucy smiled at the battlefield.

Far an wide would people come to see her pretty artwork.

Galran soldiers were encased with rock Medusa-style, most of them with a rock spear in their chest. In the middle of the battlefield, an assembly of corpses, ships, and weapons formed a fifty-foot-tall sculpture of Lucy, a sword held above her head, the purple splatter patterns being those of frozen Galra corpses.

Lucy walked away smiling, wiping the blood off her sword. She'd promised her husband she would be home for supper. She was never one to break promises.

* * *

"In times of war, it is the duty of every available soldier to fight. That includes me. I belong on the battlefield, and you will not keep me from it!"

"Pregnant women don't belong on the battlefield, period! If I have to order you to take leave, I will!"

"You can't tell me what to do! You need me, now more than ever!"

"Be quiet and stay away from the fighting. I won't tolerate you stepping one foot on the battlegrounds. Everyone else will pick up your slack, I don't care how much you protest."

"God, I love it when you won't back down from a fight, but you can be so goddamn infuriating, too. I'm leaving this house and that's final. There's absolutely no hope for this baby if I don't fight, and I might miscarry him if I do fight. There is no good answer, but there's one better than another. I'm going to those godforsaken battlegrounds, and that's final."

"I hate you."

"Love you too, sweetie."

 **Consult the top of this chapter for an important message.**

 **-Sapphy**


	4. Chapter 4

**I underestimated how boring this trip was going to be. I'm glad I took my notebook.**

Freeing an entire planet wasn't easy.

On top of yet another Robeast, Balmera was dying. Lack of energy derived from manhandling the crystals was affecting the noble planet-like creature more than the generous woman wanted to admit. Coran was right to perform the ceremony in payment for the crystal, but the damage was extensive. It did very little in the way of keeping her alive until the Paladins reached her.

Then came the trigger-happy chameleon crossbreed. The Galra were quick to flee at the sight of Lady haggar's latest crossbred experiment. Lance was beginning to wonder if Voltron should have fled with them, but Hunk's love for these people quickly pushed aside all of those doubts. They would save this planet. Guilt settled in the pit of his stomach for even thinking of abandoning these people on a dying planet. Plus, the Robeast would just follow them anyways.

He pushed away his emotions. This was war. He needed to concentrate on the task at hand.

Voltron separated in order to give the crossbreed more targets. The Lions were spread out, and they cursed the fact that the odd creature didn't seem to have a blind spot.

Lance let his mind wander so he didn't think about death and destruction for too long anymore, but Keith's yelp snapped him back to attention. Fire and ice may be opposites, but combined in batle, they were dangerous. With enough force, regular water can rip though steel, to say nothing of ice (Lance should know, he's tested those durabilities depending on the force and pressure).

 _... Jamaica, ooh, I wanna take ya-_

Lance pushed the song to the back of his mind. _Focus on the task at hand._ (The melody still kept rining in the back of his mind.)

When the separate strategy didn't work, they reformed. The rush of emotions felt nice, but still foreign.

"... Was anyone just thinking of Kokomo?" Keith asked.

"The Beach Boys are fabulous. You don't get to judge."

Lance knew he needed to get away from the mindset that someone was going to come out of the blue and take him away from his family. He'd left them for a government facility, and he'd left of his own volition. It didn't matter right now, by any perspective. He needed to concentrate.

?

Healing the Balmera really took it out of Allura. Recuperating such a large burst of Quintessence wasn't easy, especially when you spent so much in so little time dumping all your energy into a siongle spell. Allura had huge energy storage capacity. The Castle of Lions was grounded for a week while Allura rested. (It wasn't like piloting the castle took a lot of energy, Coran just didn't want the burden of flying to be on Allura's shoulders while she was forced to rest and recuperate.)

For all the time spent on Balmera, they learned a lot about this one's culture. Lance and Pidge spent most of their time in Balmera's underground libraries, Keith and Shiro spent their time with blacksmiths learning about making weapons specific to Quintessence patterns, Hunk and Shay spent most of their time looking at the sky, and Coran spent his time looking after Allura (whose immune system was reacting to the lack of Quintessence by giving her the equivalent of a flu and a cold at the same time).

Without Galra superiors, there was a planet-wide council formed, during which Shay was elected head with the title of Navarch (which sort of made her equivalent of a princess or a queen), an ambassador to begin the Voltron alliance system. Hunk kissed the rock woman in a fit of glee. Lance 'aww'ed at the sight. Keith thought it was really sappy. Shiro blushed. Pidge wondered how they would be able to reproduce.

?

Pidge, Hunk, and Lance chose to learn the Galran and Altean languages. Shiro already knew a great deal of Galran after a year of stress and torture, and all of the Paladins have a natural understanding of any spoken languages. It didn't take away the confusion of written code.

Hunk learned Altean first so that he could understand the codes on the Lions and help fix the Castle if Coran was unavailable, but mostly so he didn't give anyone food poisoning (and keep Coran out of the kitchens, cause damn is his food horrible).

Pidge learned Galran first so she could understand radio transmissions to find her family and learn how to program a cascade virus system that could disrupt the entire information networks.

Lance, however, learned both at the same time. It was easier for him because he was already quatrolingual (he attended a french school and his uncle was going deaf so they learned sign language), and it was easier to acclimatize to the fifth and sixth languages rather than the second and third or third and fourth, as it was for Pidge and Hunk respectively.  
Galran was relatively easy, even if some of the characters were confusing when put together in the same word, but the same could be said about Spanish, Latin, or Japanese, until you fully understand all of the grammar rules. Altean seemed a lot like PSE, actually, but only because it was just as frustrating to learn. He had no doubt he would get better with more practise, but he would growl at the datapadds for a while until he found more time to practise. That was how it worked with any language, after all.

?

Sendak, trapped in the stasis tubes, couldn't do anything. Paralyzed and unconscious. Possibly afraid, immoble. Lance felt pity for the soldier. He knew how that feeling of being trapped was disorienting.

Keith dismissed himself early on for training. Lance followed him around a half-hour later. Krith went to the Droid room for hand-to-hand combat training, while Lance went to the shooting range for a while. They both coulod feel the tension easing from them. Motion always helped to regain their bearings. This was so stress-relieving.

Until it wasn't, that is.

The moving, shooting targets shot from level three to level ten, and Lance only survived because he was so connected with water that it protected him on instinct now. When he slammed the door behind him, Keith burst out in almost perfect unison, panting and covered with sweat, and a Droid stuck his sword out of the cracks in the door and glared menacingly at both of them, calculative. Lance was unnerved by the glare, and shot at it though the helm.

"What is going on?" Lance's voice was filled with fury.

"He wanted to kill me!" Keth answered. "Dlon't know why, though!"

"Something must be wrong with the training systems today then, because the shooting droids wanted to kill **me**!" Lance exclaimed.

Both seemed to realize the implications: something was gravelly wrong with the Castle. They ran off to find Coran. Hopefully, he would be able to solve the problems plagueing the systems.


	5. Chapter 5

**"Two in one week," the readers cried. "How is this posible, what force of nature compeled you to update so quickly again?"**

 **"I was bored. The car is hot and smelly, and I need to drown out my father's snoring." the authoress answered. "My brother will surely be mad at me for stealing his laptop, but I care not for those trivial details for the moment. Enjoy your new all-expenses-paid chapter!"**

 **"Hold on!" cried the owner of the Fanfiction site. "Do you own Voltron?"**

 **"Yes, I've gained control over the show in the two days since I last posted. Klance is canon and Shiro's hair eventually grows back black, and Lotor's only sleeping, he'd not really dead or evil. ARE YOU CRACKED, NO OF COURSE I DON'T OWN THE SHOW, I'M FREAKIN' FOURTEEN!"**

 **On with the story.**

Alfor was dead.

Perhaps his physical form was dead before, but his memories and experience shatered and destroyed left Allura completely and truly broken for a long time. Her old family was all gone. Everyone she'd known since birth was killed. Coran was the same, and they really could only depend on one another from now on.

Or so they thought. Shiro and Lance, however, knew better and snapped them out of their angst (Coran got a left hook to the face, courtesy of Shiro, and Allura got slapped, because Lance has no qualms about slapping girls of they deserve it or need it) and reminded them in the cheesiest way possible that they weren't alone and they could depend on each other.

A forehead poke, Lance revealed, was the traditional way in his family to welcome someone in after marriage instead of long and cheesy speeches, normslly by the youngest or most mature member of the family. Lance was neither, but poked their foreheads anyways.

Keith, for his part, helped Hunk bake a cake while he thought over their situation. Since childhood, he was always a good judge of character because he could hear how their Quintessence hummed. Most of the time, he could place the melody, or at least tell their emotions, but Lance was completely blank. No falter in the beats that would indicate emotions, only the occasional leap in pattern that would indicate either heart problems or something more odd (but Lance was always odd, because his brown hair turned silver in a day. Was that a correlation?). What was more worrying was that he couldn't place the song. He looked over at Hunk, whose Quintessence sang 'Mr Blue Sky' by Electric Light Orchestra (ELO). Pidge was hunched over the computer, her patterns sounded similar to 'Ignite' by Zedd.

Lance... He couldn't place the music.

Why not? He didn't know. He could normally place the music. Weird.

?

Sendak's memories were... Intense, to say the least.

Most of them were jumbled, others were disturbingly erotic (Pidge ranted for about an hour about how he must be a teenager), and there were only a few pieces of usable information about the war.

The first piece of information about the war, oddly, also had to do with Sendak's wife. They met at a training ground in some of the harshest conditions in the Galra-controlled universe. They fought each other for the position of Valedictorian, until they entered into a relationship with each other and suddenly they didn't care about their grades. She got the spot for Valedictorian, but chose to work at the Galactic hub, while he got command over a starship. They met up with each other once a month when she was in heat.

... Reading through half-remembered songs and Galra porn wasn't something they ever wanted to do at any point in their lives, but they did find out the location of the Galactic hub. It was important, and wedged between three celestial bodies so it would be invisible unless you knew where to look for it.

So, Voltron's knights each unanimously decided to visit Sendak's wife.

It wasn't long until they got there and took control of the base. A simple plan was formed when a ship came and was going to Galra HQ.

Shiro and Allura would raid the ship for information, and Keith would go see what was so important about the base. Hunk would stay with Pidge and would protect her while she downloaded all the information about the base onto a hard-drive. Lance would wander around for materials for a bomb powerful enough to blow up the entire base after raiding its supplies (kitchen stuff, physical Quintessence, bomb supplies, clothing, etc).

It was so simple. Why did everything go pear-shaped, you might ask? Unfortunate circumstances.

On the ship, an overeager soldier wanted to be transferred to Galra HQ, and asked Allura for a promotion. The computer identified Shiro as an escaped prisoner, and everything was hectic from that point on. Shiro and Allura were forced to escape, and they thankfully got to the pod rooms, but chose to be really stupid and close the bay doors before taking off in the pod, which led to Allura being captured.

On the station, Lance managed to find an unlimited-space bag and stuff everything he wanted in there (including, but not limited to, seven comfy chairs, two years' worth of emergency rations, information about secret bases all over the galaxy, huge towers of golden sticky liquid he guessed was Quintessence, technology, clothing, clothing machines, weapons, enough bomb supplies to keep him occupied for years, and even tons and tons of swords). The resident Druid was distracted by Keith, so he had plenty of oportunities to steal plenty of raw quintessence to take up some more unlimited space in his extendable bag, then plant a bomb.

Keith was shot, and he crashed into one of the honey-like liquid vats. It shattered on his hand, which healed it in more time than a pod would.

Pidge was doing wondefully with her virus. Hunk was skimming through the information she collected for any information on Sam or Matthew Holt (there was none, but Hunk wouldn't tell her until she finished with her virus).

Shiro, escaped from the Galra ship, was quickly picked up by Green. The Paladins each unanimously decided to pay Zarkon a visit.

?

Well, that was a disaster.

They were able to retrieve her before the Druid experiments began, which meant her mind and Quintessence were unscarred, but Shiro got injured protecting her from Haggar, and all of the Lions were separated when Kari corrupted the wormhole.

Alura and Coran were stuck in a shift-loop which de-aged Coran one deca-phoebe each time they passed through while simultaneously changing the species of thev mice.

Lance could only hope everyone else was safe and with someone else, like he and Keith ended up together.

Keith complained about Red being sluggish. Lance knew it was the water getting in the way of the flame guardian's speed, just like Blue's speed capacity went from zero to one hundred.

Then, Lance saw one. One of his own kind. A mermaid. Lance left Blue, and because he believed wholeheatedly in the buddy system and staying together (and because there was nothing else to do in an injured Lion), Keith followed him out of Red.

Lance quickly chose to accept their predicament and accepted the charity the Mer were offering he and Keith, even though he hated waiting and wasn't happy about it. Keith was more vocal with his objections.

"Keith, shut up." Lance hissed.

"Shiro is dying, we need to help him!"

"Shouting at the people who are currently helping us won't change that. I think Shiro ended up with Hunk, and he's the best field medic I know. Let these people do their jobs. All we can do for now is sit back and wait for them to finish with the device."

"But-"

"I don't really like this either!" Lance cut him off hotly. "It's the best we can do for now, or we'll interfere with their work. Sit with us. You'll feel better if you eat."

Keith grumbled, but sat down with his companion and ate.

~?~

Hunk and Yellow were quick to take flight again, and quickly found Shiro and Black not far from their own landing site. Survival training from the Paladin guidebook combined with survival training from Scouts gave him the information he needed to disinfect and close Shiro's injuries, and start a fire to keep him warm.

"Dividing of emergency rations starts now." Hunk anounced, retrieving a bag from Yellow filled with nutrition packs, combat rations, and water pouches. "How do you feel?"

"Like the living death." Shiro moaned. "Kill me now. Tell my parents and Keith I love them."

"Nice to know you've got your sense of humor back." Hunk tore open one of the water packs. "Drink up."

Shiro took the offered water, drank a quarter of the contents, then gave it back to Hunk so he could get started on the soup Hunk promised to make. The broth would be enough for him to handle until his stomach settled.

Hunk frowned at how much he drank, handed the pouch back to his injured leader, and tore another to start the soup.

Hunk knew best. He knew how close Shiro was to death. He needed to conserve energy. He went back to the bag, got out a pot, and used the free-ze dried chicken and freeze-dried vegetables, put them in the pot, and began the soup.

~?~

Pidge was stuck in a trash nebula. (There's actually no such thing as a trash nebula, but who cares?)

She worked with the cute little inhabitants of the nebula (because they were so cute and cuddly, she justwanted to curl up into bed with them like a teddy bear) to assemble a comm unit to contact the Castleship. So fare, it was going extremely well. All she had to do was hook it up to Green.

A pulse passed from Green's energy, directed toward the corrupted wormhole. Pidge hoped it would reach Allura.

?

Picking up Pidge's signal was the answer to a prayer. Allura followed the coordinates, input them as the destination for the wormhole instead of nothingness. Once out of the corrupted wormhole at Pidge's coordinates, she followed the only two others she could still find: Yellow's and Black's, who were in the same location. Shiro was rushed to a pod, and Hunk got some well-deserved rest after cleaning up their makeshift campground/hospital.

A day filled with frantic worrying later, Lance's and Keith's signal was finally transmitted, and the two came back with a much better dynamic. It went from 'constantly fighting to rivals' to 'pretty chill with each other' practically overnight, but life-threatening situations will do that to you.

Keith was worried for Shiro, though. Lance stayed by his side in quiet company, equally worried for their leader.

He stayed stuck in the pod for almost five days.

During that time, Keith spent most of his time in the training room with the droids and/or Lance. Lance improved as Keith instructed him on how to improve his form, and he was suddenly punching twice as hard with half the effort.

The next day, they trained again, and again the next day. Lance didn't stop training with the must-be-on-a-caffeine-high Keith, who seemed neurotically overprotective of his elder brother, even if he did have to sacrifice his skin to do it. (He'd counted all his bruises and cuts. Fourty bruises, sixty-seven cuts.)

?

Shiro emerged from the pod around a week after his and Hunk's return with a half-remembered dream about a Galra named Ulaz who'd helped him escape. As conincidental luck would have it, they met Ulaz around one wormhole and ten minutes later. He led them to one of his orgonisation's bases, which he called the Blade of Marmora.

Unfortunately, a Robeast followed them, and Ulaz was forced to sacrifice his shielding device and his life to save Voltron. He left them with information about the main base and his faction, named the Blade of Marmora.

?

That was a mess.

The first thing they'd done after their encounter with Ulaz was not visit the Blade, as Lance suggested. (They're an intelligence agency, and the way to survive in Intelligence is to move quickly or you don't move anymore at all.) Instead, they went on a galaxy-wide joyride, courtesy of a Galra fleet catching up to them wherever they went. The Teladuv lenses cracked, so they couldn't wormhole.

Everyone else was lucky. They didn't have to hang upside-down from the figgin' ceiling. Only Lance's powers kept him aloft, stuck to the ceiling in the position Coran stuck him in.

Allura was bieng paranoid about the Galra tracking her Quintessence patterns, and Lance decided to have her nanochipped. Then, he realized he could probably be tracked through the pattern of his own powers, and even if he was strong, he was still a liability. He hated that feeling.

... No. He'd read over the files, and he was very careful about where he used his powers. A more likely explanation is that Zarkon figured out how to track Black through the Paladin/Lion bond. He did, after all, used to pilot her. Quintessence patterns is a good guess, butn you would need the precise pattern lock, and no machine is completely accurate like that.

Unfortunately, Keith and Allura shared his earlier thoughts. They fled together in the middle of the night. Before Lance could activate the microchips in Allura's boots, they got a distress call from Taujeer.

Shiro, Hunk, and Pidge went to the planet who acted like a snake, while Lance went to collect Keith and Allura. He had a feeling this was an all-hands-on-deck situation.


	6. Chapter 6

**"Three in one month," the readers yelled, bowing to the insane authoress. "How is this possible, what force of nature compelled you to update so quickly again?"**

 **"I was bored and my dad snores like a chainsaw, so I decided to write while listening to music to drown said snoring out. My brother and I have developed a system for when he and I can use the laptop, but I still use a notebook to consult both my notes and write a draft of my chapters, so it takes a bit more time than usual. Shut up now and enjoy the story." The authoress pouted with her arms crossed, hip jutted out.**

 **"Wait! Do you own-"**

 **"I SAID SHUT UP!"**

The Taujeerians were safe and free of any more casualties on their planet's moon while said planet shed its skin. Team Voltron were, for once, safe from Robeasts, but since they'd discovered Zarkon had the ability to track them using Black through the same process Red had found Keith. Thus, Shiro chose to put aside the scolding for later and spent all his time bonding with Black while everyone else set out to replace the broken Teladuv lenses.

And of course they would end up at a mall, because where else would you find an ancient focusing lens for intergalactic teleportation? (Lance thought there must be a better way to go about finding the lenses, but the mall was apparently the best chance for that currently.

When they came across most of the mall, Keith groaned and muttered under his breath how much he wished he had his soundproof earphones, and Lance sympathized, because he also wished the same. Alas, his own earphones were still probably back at home, now gathering dust on his shelf.

He resisted a shudder when he realized his family had very likely thrown them out when they got the likely reports of his exaggerated death reports.

"Afraid of water, too?" Keith's paler-then-usual face was glaring at the water fountain. "Yeah, my parents were super annoyed, especially since we lived in Canada, land of rain and snow and _cold_." A shiver ran down Keith's spine at the very thought.

"Aquaphobic?" The question wasn't a mock, especially since he was basically aquaphobic (wouldn't go outside without a rain jacket down to where his rain boots stopped, rubber gloves on his hands, an umbrella, and a rain hat), but more deathly horrified of the thought that maybe he would be burned if he stepped too close. "Not really. I'm more horrified of the thought that I might be burned alive like a witch on a pyre."

Keith's eyes widened, but nothing other about his expression changed. "... I've always had good luck around barbeques and firepits. My family always wanted s'mores, but only if they were made by me. Hamburgers and hotdogs were always my specialty, too. No, I've always been irrationally scared that I might drown."

"Hm." Lance sighed. As they got closer to the water fountain, they noticed Pidge stuffing coins in her pockets. "That's smart, I guess."

"What?"

"Pidge is collecting GAC out of the fountain. Might be useful in case we need to pay for the Teladuv lenses instead of swapping them like Coran said."

"I guess. I mean, the last time he was here, it was all swap shop pirates. Times have changed, and even if people are dressed a bit weird, we know there are absolutely no pirates here off to steal our money. Seriously, 10,000 years of time difference makes a very different environment to live in. I can only imagine how much Zarkon had to adapt to life." Keith crossed his own arms, inching closer to Lance as they were feet away from the water fountain. Lance got the hint and threw an arm around the younger teen's shoulders, gently steering him away from the fountain.

"Yeah." Lance agreed. To distract them both, he looked up to the mall TV for news. It showed Hunk with a plate of delicious-looking food in one hand and a spatula in the other, an apron draped over his yellow clothes. "... Hey, Keith, please tell me someone who looks suspiciously like Hunk but isn't actually him works at somewhere called..." it took him a second to translate the characters- "Sal's Sustenance?"

Keith looked up at the TV screen, looking at the advertisement containing Hunk's face, information filing next to him at the screen. "... Nope, I think that's Hunk himself."

"Wanna go to the food court for a free lunch?"

"Oh, god yes."

* * *

After retrieving Hunk with their bellies filled from the best food they'd had in a long time, Keith immediately left for the bathroom. The two others waited for Red's pilot outside the bathroom entrance (he didn't have any qualms against washing his hands, which was good. It seems like the only problem was with large bodies of water making him think of drowning, which was okay because he would probably have a fear of drowning too if he didn't have the magic capacity of breathing underwater), then they set off to find Pidge and Coran (because they were too stupid to bring communicators, even though Lance knew the dangers of wandering off alone, because he didn't know any of their habits concerning shopping malls - it was always easy to find them when they needed to be found or when he wanted to find them. His sisters went to their favorite clothing shops, his father went to the electronic devices or appliances stores, his brothers went to the book sections, and his mother went to look at pretty diamonds, while he wandered the halls dragging his family around looking for them all so they could leave, because all the people were making him go a bit crazy).

So, after retrieving Pidge (who'd foolishly spent all their GAC on a video game and a cow (the cow was, admittedly, more useful at least than the video game)), they found Coran running from the Unilu in charge of the swap shop. Paul Blart's Galra counterpart soon followed, and he was on a scooter instead of just a pair of boots. So, it was a bit harder to escape on just their feet, and they rode Kaltenecker to the bottom floor, the closest exit to where they'd parked their spaceship.

When they got back, they found out Shiro had successfully kicked Zarkon out of the mindscape, and that was when they decided to pay a visit to the Blade of Marmora's base of operations. Lance thought it was futile, because there was absolutely no way they wouldn't have changed locations by now because spy organisations need to keep moving in order to stay active, and all the finger-waving did absolutely nothing because there they were, still in the same place as three weeks ago.

("State your purpose.") an unfamiliar musical voice called from the computer.

("We are the Paladins of Voltron, sent to you by Ulaz.") Shiro answered without missing a beat.

A moment passed. ("Three may enter. Come unarmed.") the comm line shut down.

"Why would they ask us to come unarmed? This doesn't seems right to me." Allura commented.

"This is war. They're right to be paranoid." Keith defended.

"He's right. We need to go, too. They must have a lot of information about the war, these people have connections all across the galaxy. We need this alliance." Pidge interjected.

/\"I'm still opposed to this."/\ Allura muttered in her native language.

/\" Not the issue right now. We need this."/\ Lance sighed back. "Well, since these people are Galran, we should sent people who can completely speak that language. That is, writing and speaking both."

"Fast Lions, too," Hunk continued. "if we're gonna be able to follow the route they left for us."

"A proper representative is a must. One of the leaders, which means either Allura or Shiro, and people who can stay cool under pressure."

"Suggestions?" Shiro turned to the engineer and the tech witch.

"Lance and Keith in their respective Lions, and you with one of them." Pidge thought, pointing at Voltron's head.

"Agreed. We still don't know if Zarkon can track Black, so we need to be safe about this and not let them be able to Teladuv to the inside of their very shielded base." Hunk nodded.

Shiro nodded. "Alright. Lance and Keith, with me."

?

The team leader, everyone learned very quickly, doesn't necessarily have to be the person piloting Black. In fact, even after Zarkon took the official mantle of Head of Voltron, it was good in name only, because Alfor was still respected as leader and Blaytz and Trigel were team strategists, and Gyrgan was often the one to support them emotionally when they needed encouragement or comfort. No one was place higher than another on the team, and they prided themselves on their ability to think as a collective mind with five individual voices. It was much harder to make a horrible mistake with five separate opinions.

The team leader also doesn't necessarily make the right choices. Zarkon with his decision to fly into the void in an effort to heal his wife backfired and killed him too, turning them both into Quintessence zombies. Alfor in his decision to blow up Daibazaal only turned Zarkon's anger on them, and each of the first planets destroyed by the Galra were the home planets of Alfor, Blaytz, Gyrgan, and Trigel, in retaliation for the destruction of his own home.

On the planet where Shiro and Hunk crashed, Black's pilot recognized the potential in Yellow's Paladin to be Black's when he died (it wouldn't be too long now if the fatal virus had its say), but he still thought the better choices were Lance and Keith. Still, Black had told him herself she wouldn't tear either of those away from her siblings (what was it she'd said? Oh, right: "They are, after all, neurotically overprotective over their pilots"). Hunk may do well under pressure and is the equivalent of a good support group, but he wouldn't be a good leader to a team or a coordinator for an alliance. Lance and Keith, however, made a good team and would be able to handle those responsibilities together when he died. They would have everything in order when he died.

"Keith." Shiro addressed his brother, who didn't turn away from the screen where the red arrows illuminated the path.

"Hn." Keith hummed in acknowledgement, showing he was listening.

"If I die at any point, tell Hunk I want him to pilot Black, but you and Lance to lead Voltron together."

Keith started. "Shiro, is there something you're not telling me?" He was concerned for his brother. Rightfully so. Most twenty-year-olds don't start writing their last will and testament unless they're dying. Then again, he's the commander of a group of ragtag inexperienced teenagers thrust into a war against their will, each who commander one facet of a giant mechanical lady super-weapon. Keith supposed he would be writing his will too, but he still wanted the answer.

"No, everything's fine, I just want to be prepared." Shiro answered. A year of captivity had really given him incentive to plan ahead. He'd been almost relieved to be Lady Haggar's pet project. He didn't want to think about the unluckies under Commander Kari's gentle touch. Just thinking about the rumors made his blood run cold.

"If you say so," Keith sighed, "but the second we get back to Earth, you're going to therapy."

Shiro chuckled. Of course that would be the first thing out of Keith's mouth. "Alright."

?

They were escorted to the identification room, where three new accounts waited to be added to the collective interconnected database.

None of them were completed, because Lance went first to enter his information into the computer after his palm had been scanned, and the escort only gasped, dragged his hand away from the board, slammed a button against the wall, and several people abandoned their posts the minute that happened (okay, forget some, it was the entire freakin' base), and at least 90 people emerged from a close-by door, picking Lance up and carrying him in the air above their heads and ran down the hallways, leaving two very confused brothers in nothing but their armor and confusion.

Keith looked to the elder of the two. "... Shoulder we follow them?"

Shiro looked just as lost as the younger. "I... Guess so..."

They followed the stomping and the cheering. It wasn't that hard.

("Another has come!") everyone chanted.

"Another what?" Shiro's and Keith's voices were drowned out by the collective yelling.

"I don't know!" Lance answered the two confused brothers, arms crossed.

The cries died down instantly when the leader approached the Blue Paladin. "I am Kolivan, commander of this base."

"Lance, pilot of the Blue Lion." Lance answered. Several nodded their heads, like this simple statement made complete sense even if they'd never met him before.

"I must ask. Are our scanners exact? You are liquid, no?"

Lance seemed to tense without moving at all. "... Can we discuss this at a later date?"

Kolivan, mimicking Lance, seemed to relax without actually relaxing. "Yes, of course. Please, come with me. We've gathered much about the war." He and Lance started walking in another direction, the Blue Paladin finally relaxed from the earlier rigidness.

Keith made to go after them, but was halted by the side of a sword. He followed the blade back to its owner, a guard with his face covered. "They must not be disturbed."

Lance stopped in his tracks at the words. Maybe half the people stood shock-still in anticipation for what would happen, the other half held their breaths, hoping he wouldn't kill them all. "My companions are to stay with me." he didn't turn around to look at the nameless guard when he gave the order.

The one who'd halted Keith faltered. "But-"

"Are you questioning my authority?" The room seemed to get ten degrees colder at his vicious yet disinterested tone.

"It is policy-" the guard was interrupted again.

This time Lance turned around. His expression was emotionless, but his eyes swirled with malevolence so stop it made Keith's heart skip a beat. He'd never seen such a hateful expression on his friend before. "You are out of line. They are to stay with me. This will not be contested or questioned." He raised his hand, slightly curled at the fingertips. "Do you understand?"

"Y-yes." The guard still didn't lower his sword. He turned back to the more-confused-than-before brothers. "You both are under the protection of a Liquid. Do not forget that, or misplace that trust." He lowered his sword and it faded back into a very familiar dagger, turning back to Lance, and he _bowed._ "Vrepit sa."

"Vrepit sa." Lance echoed dully, all traces of cruelty gone from his voice. "Keith, Shiro. Come with me."


	7. Chapter 7

_Lance stood by the ocean, letting the breeze waft through his hair. He could smell the saltwater on the air, taste the sweetness in the air. The altitude was just perfect, and the sandy was grainy and cool under his feet. The full moon shone in the sky._

 _A blink, and he was on the top of a cliff, preparing to dive in. His feet took off from the rocky cliff (the bottom of his feet got scratched)-_

"Lance? Are you still with us?"

Lance snapped his eyes open. He'd unintentionally dozed off (Kolivan's voice just never changed in pitch or tone, like his mom when she was reading a story to Alazne and he was listening from the next room), and the lighting in the room was dim save for the purple torches. Also, the chair they'd given him was ridiculously comfortable. "Yes, sorry. I wasn't sleeping at all. I was checking my eyelids for holes."

Shiro snorted and Keith smiled behind his turned-up collar, but everyone else looked confused. "Would you not have known if there were holes in your eyelids after the years of growing up and seeing no holes?"

"It's a human idiom," Shiro corrected. "Ignore everything he just said, because that was a complete lie."

Lance yawned, somehow more tired than before after taking that short (but sweet) nap. "Yeah, I couldn't think up anything better on the spot."

Kolivan cleared his throat and continued with the meeting. "Planet Erazeel, a planet which used to be under the protection of Eclecta, a powerful Lightning logician. In the past, Eclecta was somewhat similar to Voltron in that she freed Galra-occupied planets, and put them under her direct protection by setting up an elemental barrier in the atmosphere and giving it back its freedom by leaving it alone, until she fell in love with an inhabitant of Erazeel. We didn't get any information past that before she closed the planet to outside interference, but the barrier around Gryll has recently collapsed and project Geode has been advanced on Erazeel, so we can safely assume that Eclecta has died or has been killed."

"Is there anything more that we know about Eclecta?" Keith asked.

"No. But her children may have the gene for element-resequencing," Kolivan said. "If so, they stand to be some of the more powerful logicians currently available."

"How do you mean? What happen to the Logicians?" Shiro asked.

"They were hunted and killed, or experimented on, most likely." Lance's hands curled into fists. _SDOGFCTS,_ a voice in the back of his head whispered softly.

"Yes. Many do not survive the experiments, as well. One of our own, Slav, is a tactical and technological genius, and is an Air. He was kidnapped to experiment on his unusual abilities, and to gain knowledge on how to bring us down with the millions of devices he daydreams about. If he is still alive, it would be a tactical advantage to have him back," Antok said.

Keith sighed. "Alright. Well, the issue we need to figure out is how we're going to get those planets back, and how to keep them under our protection."

"You will be willing to help, won't you?" Shiro asked, turning to Kolivan for confirmation.

Kolivan looked hesitantly towards Lance, as if expecting him to say something that would refute Shiro's decision, and almost for approval to continue the conversation. Finally, he opened his mouth. "Yes. We will coordinate our forces with you."

Lance got up from his place at the table, instantly putting a few others on guard. "Please give us all relevant information on the war. I need to sleep, seeing as I've not gotten ten hours this week and am operating solely on the dregs of coffee and adrenaline."

"Would you like a room?" Antok offered.

Lance didn't pause in his walking. "Blue's comfortable enough, thank you."

Without their Liquid in the room, each of the Galra warriors turned to the brothers. They'd heard of Shiro's exploits in the gladiatorial arena and were hesitant to take him and a Liquid on all at once, but Keith's knife didn't belong to him, else is had been abandoned by one of his parents. He had to be tested per their rules.

Knowledge or death.

~?~

Lance slept approximately seven hours before Red woke him up with a loud, ferocious roar and she started attacking the Blade of Marmora's base.

Narrowing his eyes, he grabbed a water pouch he was sure to always keep in Blue's cockpit, and rushed back into their base.

Shiro and Kolivan were huddled around a screen, showing Keith, lying on the floor.

" _Kolivan, what is happening?!_ " Lance bellowed, and most everyone shivered with fright, while Kolivan jolted, as if he'd been hit by a bolt of lightning. An Elemental was roaring.

"Your friend has been given the test to keep his blade. It is Galran, it belong to us. When he is meant to go through that door, he may keep it," Kolivan answered, with as calm a voice as he could muster.

Lance took a deep breath and gently pressed a few fingers against the screen, almost wishing he could brush away Keith's bangs to check whether he had a head wound. Lance didn't want his teammate to be dying. He was willing to sacrifice his own secret or powers to save him, or Shiro, or Hunk or Pidge. "'As of this moment, we are all dead. We go into battle to reclaim our lives. This we do gladly, for we are Jem'Hadar. Remember that victory is life.'"

"Watch a lot of Star Trek?" Shiro asked, anything to distract himself from his brother potentially dying.

"My sister was obsessed. Could not get enough of it," Lance said, not daring to tear his eyes away from Keith's still form.

Two figures materialized above Keith. "He's waking up," Kolivan said.

He was right. Keith's eyes opened, and the blurry figures became more solid and opaque. It was Shiro and Lance.

"You did it, Keith."

"Sh-ishi?" Keith's voice sounded shaky and broken. (Internal injuries? Head wound? Something wrong with his vocal chords?) Projection-Shiro offered a hand. Keith took it, and rose to his feet.

"Kolivan told us you lasted longer than anyone else in these battles. You don't have to keep going," projection-Shiro said.

Keith clutched his shoulder (and Lance hadn't realized it was bleeding until now, but it was badly injured and Lance growled, a deep rumble in the back of his throat). "What are you talking about?" Keith's voice came through the screen with a two-second delay. There was a rumble in the back of the room as Red's attacks grew weary on the base.

"We've been talking, and we think you should give up the knife." projection-Lance said.

Keith's eyes got wider than he'd ever seen them. "What?"

"Give up the knife," projection-Shiro said calmly.

"I can't do that," Keith said.

"Explain," projection-Lance said.

"This knife is the only link I have to my birth mother. If I throw it away, what is she to me?" Keith looked down at the symbol, pressing a finger to the symbol.

"You have a different family. With Voltron, with your adoptive parents, and everyone else you've grown emotionally involved with. It's inevitable." Projection-Lance spoke softly, reaching for the purple knife. "The difference is that your knife is putting you in danger because you're too stubborn to let it go. We might not leave here either. That's three Voltron paladins gone, and two Lions stuck here. We all have to make sacrifices to succeed, and if our sacrifices mean giving up things that are important to us, we have to make them."

Keith's hand went limp, no longer clutching the dagger with the death grip it had been. Projection-Lance took the dagger by the blade and threw it off the platform. Keith didn't look up from his shoes, but winced when the knife clanged at the bottom. "Do you have the information we need from Kolivan?" Keith asked, looking to the other direction from where projection-Lance had thrown away the dagger.

"Yeah," projection-Shiro said. "Let's go."

Keith walked away from where Lance had thrown his only remaining link, feeling a bit cold.

Shiro turned to Kolivan, murder in his eyes. Kolivan didn't flinch, and instead gave them the Altean-compatible flash drive, filled with information on how to contact them and how to contact their allies, the Krill-itch'ka, the Ikat'ika (Lance would later laugh at the name Ikat'ika, because Star Trek), the Marrdax, the Incubus, the Sheath, and the Osiris.

Each of them were separate, and ran into each other fairly often, but they were very sneaky people and eventually formed an alliance, according to the file.

The Krillians (as they were referred to numerous times in the text) were spymasters who could sneak and ferry any information anywhere. They mostly worked against the Galra, but were neutral, so they mostly let the fighting happen without participating unless they got enough money for it. If you asked them to hide a space ship in a teapot, they could probably do it without needing shrink rays.

The Ikat'ika were a band of aliens who'd escaped from Druid experiments and as such had unusual abilities which came in handy. They all referred to themselves by their codenames, wore masks, and used voice scramblers so they couldn't rat each other out even under torture because the Galra had everything centralized by now.

The Marrdax were similar to the druids, but used different method than just shooting black/purple lightning. They were incredibly creative with their magic too, and could in fact write a sentence on the hull of a ship that would cause it to explode. Most could write with their feet too, so wherever they walked was a potential minefield.

The Incubus were more like collectors. They collected metals, jewels and gems and crystals, weapons, and had a big enough trading service to supply weapons to blow up the Milky Way ten times over and still have more weapons left over.

The Sheath were something of group of Galra-(enter species here) halflings against Galra-sanctioned racism led by Prince Lotor. Lotor was apparently a patriot, which didn't bode well because the minute joining the Galra was going to be advantageous or if it looked like the right decision, he would join his father again.

The Osiris were Balmerans who had the unique ability of handling Balmeran crystals without fear of backlash form the energy inside the crystal. This property held true with corrupted Balmeran crystals, Scaultrite, and Niriyan gems, which were different according to the colour but each had a unique property to give them the powers of a low-powered logician. (The dark blue gems, for the power of liquid, were the most coveted and the most rare.)

Lance pored over the information as much as he could in his room on the Castleship until the meal call sounded.

~?~

Hunk wasn't very good at a lot of things. But he liked to think he was pretty good at body language, since his mama began teaching him.

Everyone was relatively at ease, joking and laughing with each other and playfully punching each other (though, that last part was mostly Keith until the alteans decided it was an obscure human bonding ritual and started doing it, themselves). The only exception was Lance, who picked at his food goo and shivered every once and a while instead of joking and making conversation like normal. He seemed paler than usual, and tense, like he was expecting something to come out from around the corner and attack him.

"Lance, are you alright? You've barely said a word all evening."

Evidently, Hunk hadn't been the only one to notice. Allura's words made Lance's head snap up with an expression that was nearly a flinch. "I-I'm just feeling a bit weird. I think I just need some more sleep."

Hunk shrugged it off and returned to his plate, still keeping an inconspicuous eye on Lance.

Lance, of course knew why this was happening. This was the pain he normally got when there wasn't enough full moon exposure (like the eight-month captivity period Lance most definitely doesn't like to think about, or anytime when Lance locked himself in the basement or attic, where there were no windows, so he wouldn't get moonstruck). His hand was tensed, and he very slowly fisted and straightened his hands, fingers shaking. His breaking was very steadily getting shakier.

His food was mostly gone anyways, so Lance took the opportunity to leave the room.

He studied the files for the next three hours before the automatic lights cut out.

(The schedule was far too precise for his liking.)

Because Pidge was a tech genius, Lance had asked her to make the lights in his room and the standard hallways manual as well, so he turned up the lights a few notches so he could actually see beyond the light of his tablet, and put it away to charge on his nightstand.

Over the past few months, he'd been customizing the design of his room to be more like what had been his childhood bedroom: murals on all the walls by expertly controlled paint and sculptures on his dresser from water and food coloring.

A small sculpture on his dresser was almost bioluminescent (and Lance guessed that particular food coloring wouldn't be quite safe for human consumption even if it was for alteans), a sculpture of the Blue Lion behind an almost glowing particle barrier. Another, very carefully done piece by piece, was Voltron, her sword against the flat surface of the dresser helping it to keep its balance. Another had been made from juniberry perfume Allura never used to left it up for grabs (and god, but that shit smelled _good_ ) to form a juniberry flower, the picture of which he'd found on a general server.

The first mural on his left was for the full moon, a soft silver light lighting up the surface of the ocean in black/blue. Gentle yellow dots against the background of the clear night sky (nine parts black paint and one part midnight blue) told of starlight.

The mural on the wall opposite was covered with a detailed illustration split down the middle. On the left, the original paladins each being dorks. Alfor was eating a single plate of cake with his wife, icing smeared on Melenor's nose, and Alfor was very clearly laughing. Zarkon held his baby in his arms and his wife sat on his shoulders. Blaytz was the one draped over his husband's shoulder, drunk out of his mind on fraskll (an alcoholic drink that, as far as he could tell, tasted similar to whiskey with the same effectiveness as vodka) and love, an inscription on the bottom saying Newly Married. Gyrgan held his sleeping wife in one arm and their tiny adopted son in the other, the Balmeran baby squeezing his mother's nose like babies are bound to do. Trigel was surrounded by children, a flower crown on her head and a serene, happy smile on her face.  
On the right side of the wall, there was Voltron, bowing to Allura as if reporting to a commander, her paladins nowhere to be seen. It was set on Arus - though on reflection perhaps he should repaint it to be the Juniberry canyons.

Lance turned to the other wall, where he was still contemplating the design. His blood turned cold when he saw the water a few inches from his face, tilting at him like it was curious. Without a second of hesitation, it went back in the glass he always kept on his nightstand.

He didn't really get much warmer that night, even after he slipped under the covers.

His mind kept revisiting the past, SDOGFCTS featuring very primarily in his dreams, until the full moon entered the picture and it was _all he could think about_.

'This isn't healthy,' his mind whispered. 'Go back to sleep.'

 _But he couldn't._

A soft purring echoed through his head.

A blink, and he was in Blue's hangar, staring up at her.

Another, and he was in front of a wormhole, muting the commlink volume.

He snapped out of his haze and became **clear** when he saw the full moon.

Everything faded to black when he touched the water.

 **I have no excuse for this horribly long hiatus. Sorry for taking so long.**

 **Leave a comment if you're so inclined. Or don't. It doesn't really change much here.**


	8. Chapter 8

**This story is officially discontinued. No, adoption is not allowed, and I don't want to hear anything about this work going up anywhere else. For the record, I am only active on . Have a nice day.**


End file.
